The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

grand ceremonial reform: his name is Gongsun Qing ���. 5 He has been dealt
with by the Shiji and by its successor, the Han shu ��, compiled by Ban Gu ��
(32– 92), in a rather contradictory way: whereas in the “Treatise on the Feng and Shan
Sacrifi ces” of the Shiji Gongsun Qing is several times depicted as a charlatan who
abused Emperor Wu’s confi dence, 6 the Han shu, apart from largely reproducing the
Shiji account in its “Monograph on State Sacrifi ces” (Jiaosi zhi����), elsewhere
depicts him as one of the leading experts of his day who was entrusted with the task
to prepare the new calendar of the Han together with Sima Qian.
It will be the main purpose of this study to scrutinize more closely the ideological
background of the critical or even derogatory attitude which the author of the
Shiji displays toward Gongsun Qing in the “Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifi ces,”
and also to search for a perhaps more balanced judgment concerning the relation
between the ideas propagated by Gongsun Qing and those represented by the three
Sima.
The starting point of the paper, inspired by the special topic of this volume,
inscription/orality, will be the prophetic message which Gongsun Qing introduced
into Emperor Wu’s court in 113 B.C. This prophecy is claimed to have been handed
down as part of a very old oral tradition combined with an even older inscription
on a tripod. Certainly neither of these claimed traditions would stand up to a closer
examination in terms of their credibility. But the very claim of having support of traditions
other than and – most importantly – older than the evidence taken from the
sacred canon sheds new light on the innovative methods by which the competing
groups of intellectuals vied with each other for supremacy at the time of Emperor
Wu. And moreover, Gongsun Qing’s prophetic message of 113 B.C. seems to offer a
key to one of the most intricate secrets that the Shiji hides.
5 No exact data of his life are known, except from the evidence given in the Shiji according to which he must have
been active as an advisor at the court of Emperor Wu mainly between the years 113 and 109. The important
question whether Gongsun Qing should be reckoned among the ru or rather among the fangshi is diffi cult to
answer. As we shall see presently from the advice he gives to the emperor one should expect that the author
of the Shiji reckoned him among the fangshi. In the “Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifi ces” he is, however,
nowhere referred to as fangshi. In one passage of the chapter we fi nd the expression Gongsun Qing ji fangshi zhi
yan���������� (Shiji 28/1397; 12/473), the coordinating particle ji ��marking a certain hierarchical
separation of both (e.g. elsewhere in the same chapter where ru and fangshi are likewise contrasted against each
other by the particle ji, cf. Shiji 28/1398; 12/475). One may thus assume that Gongsun Qing enjoyed a position
which was higher-ranked than that of fangshi in general, though the methods he propagated were certainly those
typical for fangshi.
6 For a concise interpretation of the chapter’s content which follows exactly this explicit and implicit overall
concern of the Shiji author (and rewritten in Han shu 25) see Hans van Ess, “Der Sinn des Opfertraktates fengshan
shu des Ssu-ma Ch’ien,” Archiv Orientální 70 (2002): 125132, as well as his paper “Implizite historische
Urteile in den Opfertraktaten von Ssu-ma Ch’ien and Pan Ku,” Oriens Extremus 43 (2002): 40–50, which focuses
mainly on ideological differences between Shiji and Han shu as it can be concluded from slight but signifi cant
differences within that part of the “Monograph on the State Sacrifi ces” which the Han shu largely rewrote from
the Shiji account.
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